


DMC Is a Greasy, Guppy Fishbowl

by oldsneakers



Series: Meta Collection [1]
Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Death of the Author('s Entire Goddamn M.O.), Devil's Advocate But I Don't Like It, Erotics of Loss, Explicit Language, F/M, Fan Service, HATE? LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I HATE., Homophobia, Incest, Literary Theory, M/M, Meta, Nineties Gamerbro Hivemind, Not Beta Read, Not Cited, Obnoxious Narrator, Real Brother Relationship, Regrettable CLAMP References, Regrettable Pairing Tags, Sexualized Violence, Spardacest, Wall of text, William Blake Is Rolling, Yaoi Aesthetic, first instance of lady/jester on ao3 i want to kms, het bait, i hate y'all for making me say the swords are phallic, jokes xDD, the things i do for love etc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-03 00:13:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19452409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oldsneakers/pseuds/oldsneakers
Summary: AKA, It's All Greek To Me! This is what I'm calling my DMC meltdown, which is thinly disguised as meta about its canon incest. Dear god. I can't believe I wrote a fucking incest manifesto. I'm cancelling myself, lol.





	DMC Is a Greasy, Guppy Fishbowl

**Author's Note:**

> So this starts out semi-respectable, but I very quickly dissolve into an absolute froth. I hate using academic voice and I hope my many departures throughout at least give y'all a bit of a laugh. Also, I'm not here to pick (more) stupid slap-fights, but the catalyst for this analysis was definitely the recent rash of bullying in DMC fandom.

Since Tumblr's userbase shrank, its purity culture has gained influence (and yet I still get followed by porn bots, lol). This piece is about the DMC fandom and the hypocrisy of _aggressive_ purists' views of canon and fandom. DMC is such a stupid series in so many ways, but it _is_ market-smart because it appeals to both male and female players' sexuality through character design and dynamics - which are frequently, canonically incestuous. Incest is a common thread throughout the narrative, and it is used to inspire equal lust and disgust in both the players _and_ the series' characters. We project onto Dante because he's the MC, and we also experience his emotions and reactions.

It really blows my mind that purists call DMC a "wholesome" family drama. Like yeah, it's a family drama. But that family drama is also rife with unwholesome, incestuous subtext, lol. Incest itself is a "family drama."

(u wanna get really literary u can even say that shit is metatextually incestuous bc we ARE dante but yeah that's very *~LitCrit~*, i'd beat myself up tbh if i made this useless fucking argument, sticking to the actual text rn lol)

**DMC1**

There's sexual, romantic, and familial tension between Dante and Trish, who is a sexy demon clone of his mother. Yeah, it's fucking weird. But it's there. It's not explicit (OH JUST KIDDING, IT IS EXPLICIT, THEY DATE IN THE ANIME AND DELIBERATELY LEAN INTO THE MOTHER/SON DYNAMIC LOL), but DMC is not a subtle series except with regard to its less respectable creative influences (see: Trigun->yaoi section at the end of this; and honestly, it is not even really subtle about this, lol. It's just not explicit). Its lack of subtlety and clichety allow players more room to interpret the series' tropes. The first game establishes a precedent for incest as a device to explore Dante's loss of family, identity, heritage, and humanity.

(I actually don't remember anything about Nelo Angelo, which is fortunate considering the length of this piece, lol. sry it's been brewing for weeks)

 **DMC2**

I'm gonna skip over DMC2 on account of almost going into a coma trying to play it after DMC3 on turbo, lol. DMC2 is dumb as hell but it looks fucking sweet

**DMC3**

I feel like I have to prepare myself mentally for this. I assumed as a teen I was just being horny with no sense of self-awareness about this game and its character dynamics, but I replayed it after beating DMCV and let me just say - holy. shit. lol. I'm just gonna touch on the main points in list form (ETA oh christ the bullets aren't enough this shit can't be contained):

  * 3A) That opening cutscene... I don't know if the dialogue and delivery are as charged in Japanese as they are in English, but Lady describes the brothers' fighting as a "twisted pleasure." I really don't know how you can _possibly_ read that platonically, lol. Her VA even hinges on the phrase to deliberately drive this point home for the audience. pls don't make me say the swords are phallic. sigh. i guess these days i really have to. they're phallic lol. There's like, IDK, panting and ~the rain is falling~ while they grind their swords together with significant looks LMAO, it's very romantic and homoerotic and shit. Just like Arkham will later cut himself up on Vergil's sword in the library scene to demonstrate how violence is seductive and the sword is _sexual_ (see: 3C), Dante impales himself on Vergil's sword, both deliberately and, like...not so much. (Ouch, I just realized he is impaling possibly the same hand on Vergil's sword that Vergil later slashes to reject his help at the end.) Suffice to say they're both into it, lol. They are always running each other through, mixing roots and blood or whatever. (Fuckin'...note: This is an incest metaphor, antis. See DMCV section below.) The sexuality of their dynamic is never explicit, but taken in with the series' themes and this game's...scenes..., I gotta say if it wasn't intentional I will just call shenanigans, lol. Like, what exactly does one Awaken to through a culmination of "twisted pleasure." This is not a question, lol. 
  * 3B) Lady's dad flirts with her, in Jester's form. It is meant to be dismissed like Jester is meant to be dismissed, but he _keeps coming back_ both as a mini-boss ingame and as the narrative device that keeps all these characters working together. Jester's boundless sexuality is a joke, and a taunt/goad, and it's directed at everyone at one time or another in the game. Even Vergil and Dante! What keeps these characters bound together is an atmosphere of fucked-up sexuality and power dynamics, with Jester as like a little microcosmic, tongue-in-cheek fuckin'. ANNOYING REMINDER of that. sorry i hate jester but he does bring all this shit together in the most infuriating and obnoxious way possible lol. He is easy to brush off because _the devs want you to dismiss it and not get bent out of shape about it_ (lol). But he is also recurrent, a fixture, because they are inviting you to do that _if you want_.
  * 3C) Let's talk about...Arkham, actually. On the heels of that. So, there's a scene in the early game where Vergil and Arkham are having some kind of pretentious (SHOCK...) conversation in the library, and Arkham mentions Vergil and Dante's father. Vergil gets pissed and points his sword at him, but instead of backing off, Arkham closes the distance between them while deliberately slicing himself on Vergil's sword. He lays it on pretty thick, saying that one can be "seduced" by evil. This is also extremely uncomfortable because weird, incest-y context is _still_ in the air, underlying their conversation; because Arkham is equating Vergil with his father, defining him solely as a surrogate for power. To Arkham, Vergil _is_ Sparda, whom he is willing to seduce and be seduced by. He is willing to _submit to Vergil in exchange for power and satisfaction,_ at least temporarily, but he also reduces Vergil to an object of power that is, when you get right down to it, Vergil's father. And Vergil is playing along because he also wants power.  
  
Power, for both of them, is achieved through Sparda. Sparda is what/who they both want, and that want is sexually charged/expressed. At least for the moment of their exchange, no matter how much both may resent that as proof of their own shortcomings, they both need Sparda-by-proxy to become powerful and...get satisfaction, lol. Which is incestuous, and homoerotic. Not just because Arkham-Jester is the "queer villain" stereotype that motivates Nineties Gamerbros to defeat him without really thinking about why they want to do it so badly (homophobia), but _also_ because Vergil's sword is reinforced as a symbol of seductive power and enlightenment through that power. Power that his father gave him. (See: "Dante I have to stab you to awaken u it's purely platonic trust me, also please don't mention dad while we 'fight,'" and etc; BUT THEN AGAIN Vergil sure does wax poetic about his dad a lot, Eugh x 10k Challenge lol). His power, his appeal both as a leader and an object of desire, is merely an extension of his father.
  * 3D, I Guess?) Let's focus (as you can see, I use this verb extremely loosely LOL) on Vergil and then Dante, both as extensions of Sparda. The twins base their identity on their father's swords, and see themselves merely as weapons or tools to create violence; that's what they interpret as their legacy and the extent of their personhood. They can't seem to untangle themselves from using violence to communicate their desires, or from seeing themselves as objects because of that. Due to the loss of their father (and Eva), they deal with trauma by violently rejecting Sparda (as Dante does) at the same time they're sacrificing themselves on the altar of his influence (Vergil deliberately, Dante not so much). They can't escape this obejctified view of themselves as extensions of their father, and of the trauma his absence ultimately causes. Sadder still is that the twins fail to meet even this reductive, dehumanizing standard of self-worth: they are their father's weapons, but these weapons are so misused and so broken as to be useless. They don't save their mother, themselves, or each other (in DMC3, at least).  
  
So, yeah, that's fucked up. I don't need to say how that must fuck with someone's sense of self, and why it'd motivate Vergil especially to claim more power for himself to escape his father's shadow and become his own person. Be desirable on his own, not just because people see him as his parent. Dante deals with this by simply not dealing with it at all, until he meets Lady. Her experiences are similar in almost every way, including her role as her mother's surrogate/blood-sacrifice-for-power (a sacrifice that was orchestrated by Dante's father, ouch) and the hovering specter of parent-child incest (Dante with Trish in DMC1 and Lady with Jester, jokey as it is; even Vergil with Sparda's ghost, although this is a lot less - physically incestuous; it's just *~literary~*). Lady helps Dante discover who he is through personal, individual responsibility that is still honorable. Killing one's family is a hideously individualistic act. Killing them because they disgrace themselves, the family unit, and you by extension? That is superficially familial. And yet it is also grotesquely intimate, because you presume to know who your family is - who they must be and who they cannot _possibly_ be in relation to you, on pain of death. I think Lady actually has one red and one blue eye because she mirrors the twins' struggle and represents a (scorched) middle ground between their ideologies. Lady does what she sets out to do, but it destroys a part of her. And Dante and Vergil do the same.  
  
Vergil apparently chooses suicide over defeat at Dante's hands. What he really chooses, what I think he's really choosing subconsciously, is defeat at the hands of anyone who's not Dante. What does it really mean to Vergil to be defeated by his brother? It is a lot uglier than just pride, IMO. It's jealousy. Terror. Loneliness. I don't think Dante's _individuality_ suffers nearly as much as Vergil's does when he is defeated. Like sure, Dante's pissed when Vergil gets the better of him, but it doesn't pierce him to the core in the same way. Because Vergil is not someone with a strong sense of _individual_ identity. Stay with me here because he is a _powerful presence_ , but his familial identity is all-consuming and influenced by both his mother's (false) rejection and his father's looming shadow. He is living purely to avenge and protect the family he has left; purely to become his father. (But then again, who TF even knows what's up at nineteen years old, lol.)  
  
To be defeated by Dante, who is individualistic to the point of destructiveness, at least at first, is...too much, on a lot of levels. Vergil would not have anything _left_ if he lost, because what he has is honor and familial duty. If he's defeated by Dante, what's the point? It proves he's unnecessary, unfit; that he is neither _enough_ to protect his remaining family or himself. His disgrace in defeat is not individually his; it's more familial. And yet it is also entirely his, or he _thinks_ it is, because he wants to own it and control it. Pride is a smokescreen for his fractured individuality, and power is like slapping a band-aid on a mortal wound but also, like, missing the wound itself completely and just hitting the skin beside it instead, lol. Dante's defeat, for Dante, seems to me more individual - and therefore less restrictive, less dire - because he flat-out rejects his family and wallows in isolation to blunt his trauma. And yet, Dante immediately pursues Vergil to recover his half of Eva's amulet before he even sees Lady. (The twins are just...phew. Both a lot of dramatic smoke and mirrors, lol.)  
  
Dante also gets _cool shit_ when Vergil kicks his ass. (Devil Trigger? Pulled. gotta hit that jukebox to start it if u know what i mean) Defeat, both narratively and metatextually, is essential to victory, because Dante becomes more powerful as we become better button-mashers through our...many instructive failures, lol. Vergil doesn't get stronger if we fail. He _could_ have a lot to gain within the narrative, but he doesn't consider defeat (never mind a triumphant defeat) at Dante's hands an option or a possibility. A defeated weapon is useless, period. Defeat doesn't jive with Vergil's ambitions, nor does he see Dante as his equal in battle or in ethics until it's too late to really make that leap count (fuck i hurt myself on accident with this phrasing). One of the biggest differences between them is that Dante resists being defined as a weapon. He goes down kicking and screaming, sure, but he puts up a good fight. Vergil embraces this perspective from the outset, even in death - until he really does become it.  
  
Suffice to say, both brothers have different definitions of self-care lol, and they are alternately envious and resentful of these gaps between their experience and their philosophy. Their identities are both fused to the point of obsession and also defined in opposition - to their eventual, mutual ruin. Vergil represents the collective - he is honor-bound - that ironically is selfish to the point of collective destruction up to and including himself and, as fallout, his brother. Dante represents the individual - whose close connection with his own desires and feelings eventually grants him the insight to connect with others and to be compassionate (well, sporadically compassionate given the depth of his depression following the end of DMC3, but hey - more agonizing irony). Their tragedy unfolds because neither of them really understands this about the other, nor can they reconcile themselves as conflicting yet complementary, so they fight and Dante eventually kills Vergil-as-Nelo-Angelo in DMC1. Another ironic agony: Mundus takes what little individual identity Vergil has (which Vergil repressed to wear his father's mantle comfortably) to nail him to yet another branch of Sparda's legacy. You'd think this dude would learn, lol.



**Shitty Anime Segue**

Dante doesn't get over Vergil's death. It's driven into the ground in the anime with some really heavy-handed scenes: Dante flirts with a younger-brother throwaway-char who is obsessed with his older brother and almost kills himself chasing after his ghost (which takes the form of a demon, just in case you were fucking lost, lol). He also kills two other twin, demon brothers who are just bargain-bin stand-ins for him and Vergil. The younger acknowledges the elder brother as his "reason to live," years before Vergil vis a vis V (heh heh heh) will say the same about Dante in DMCV. Anyway, now that bargan-bin Vergil-twin is dead, BB!Dante-twin would rather die than live without him. So that happens, and it's implied Dante drags their corpses to a nice sunny wooded area that's a little ways off from the human cemetery. Their love kills them, and Dante swings the ax. _Because he is compelled to repeat the history of his loss._ His related depression is cyclical and compulsively destructive. (Forgot to mention, but in DMC2 I really can't rationalize his brain-dead personality except as suicidality due to all this shit, lol. Vergil's compulsive, obsessive self-destruction in DMCV also echoes Dante's.) The BB!Twins' love is so unnatural they can't be buried with humans, but they also can't be apart from one another; they're arranged together with their swords behind them, far from civilized society. like yeah sure I can read this as strictly platonic if I blind myself first lol

**DMC4**

...is another complete disaster to me, so I'm just gonna touch really quickly on a few things:

  * 4A) Nero is in love with his adoptive sister, Kyrie. That's not gay or like, legit incest, but it does echo the theme of incestuous attachment that forms after trauma and loss. Nero is an orphan, but he isn't fucked-up like Dante and Vergil lol, he's just angry. I'm just spitballing here, but IMO he has a much clearer understanding of his goals and responsibilities as reflections of _himself_ , _his_ identity, and not merely as part of a legacy or an obsessive bond with a twin. These thoughts are suitable and healthy for someone his age, even if he is angry about his heritage and his abandonment; even if that legacy interests him while it simultaneously infuriates him. It's not an _obsession_ to him like it is with Dante and Vergil, but it is a sore point because he is almost sacrificed on its altar (lol). The Order sees him as a tool because he carries Sparda's blood. I dunno, you _could_ say he is as fucked-up as his father and his uncle, but I think he's remarkably well adjusted and even rational. His anger is justified and righteous; he just doesn't know where to direct it. Unlike Vergil, he also doesn't become obsessed with power as the singular solution to his pain. And he is that way metatextually so people can have their sweetboy cake and eat it too, lol. Still, there's...suggestions. Of legit incest. But it doesn't really hold water narratively or ring true to his character IMO, not like the twins' pathology does. I'll...sigh. Address this below, lol. Disclaimer: I hate Danero/Vergo, lol. Sweet ship names, though.
  * 4B) The devs put in a throw-away fan-service scene in DMC4 where Nero grabs Dante around the waist, with his legs (???) just to throw him off again and then stab him with his own sword. Dante's flirty with Nero in a way that's supposed to a) piss off fanboys so they'll fight harder and b) excite fujoshis, lol. I wouldn't even bat an eye at this bait because I think it's ridiculous and part of the series' "all hands on deck" marketing, but hey, it's there. And I guess I gotta mention that it's there because antis ignore it _religiously_. Like, for what fucking reason does this scene exist except to titillate the slice of fandom that appreciates this dynamic? It's there whether I like it or not, lol. Also, "BLUSH A PRETTY PINK WHEN I KICK YOUR ASS"? Very natural, very tough thing to say in a fight, lol.  
  
Having Nero stab Dante through the gut is also an echo of Vergil's, uh...dynamic with Dante, which at the very least paves the way for a Very Disturbing Interpretation of their relationship where Dante projects his brother's loss/his desires for him onto his brother's son. Which ogod. No thank you. But! That isn't exactly out of line with how he engages with Trish, a surrogate mother who is also briefly his lover. Nero/Dante is just gay incest, not het. So, again, there's a precedent for this interpretation and definitely subtext.



**DMCV**

I think they're toning it down a lot, but there's still some scenes that aren't exactly kosher, "wholesome-family" content. (I STAND FUCKIN' CORRECTED, P FUCKIN' SURE THE DEVS GAVE DANTE'S MODEL A BONER IN THE CINEMATIC WHERE VERGIL STABS HIM, LOL. oh my god. in the entire fucking boss fight? LMAO. i have to...verify this later, but uh. it's. it doesn't look like just camera angle shit in the cinematic at least, lol) Note: author never verified this lol, it makes me uncomfy to stare at dante's dick for more than 20secs but boy can i write 30k's worth of explicit porn about it i guess

Personally, I think they might give the twins female love interests in V+I, but until then, I'll just have fun with these dysfunctional crumbs! I mean, I love Lady/Dante, too. I'll be sad if it isn't their endgame, if it REALLY comes to canonized romance. They _have_ sexual tension, but the devs went out of their way to say their relationship is professional and "not any shit like [romance]" (Morrison aka Matte Black please get a fucking black actor next time Capcom jesus that voice is so bad). Why? 'Cause Vergil and Dante's sexual tension is about a thousand times more compelling and motivational for the both of them. Leaving it ambiguous lets all the members of the audience have their cake and eat it, too. I personally think this series is stronger without canonized romances, but I think that about just about everything, lol. Maybe they won't push a het romance at all, though? All this shit is so incredibly deliberate I'd be surprised if they went and hetconned them. (as Auntarctica says, these ppl clearly know where their bread is buttered.) also i hate to be problematic lmao but 45, majorly depressed, and single is not exactly a straight look

 **BONFIRE FOR MY HET HOMIES IT'S LIT, GET IN CLOSE WHILE U CAN**

ACTUALLY WAIT I HAVE TO VIBE ABT DANTE/LADY. IT'S NOT INCEST (shocking considering this series' layout) BUT CHRIST DO THEY EVER CONNECT OVER SHARED TRAUMA/INCEST-AS-IDENTITY

so there's this part in the dmc3 novel that says vergil renames seven fallen angels as part of the ritual to open the door to hell again. you know what the cutest parallel ever is? dante catches lady (his fallen/falling angel) when she's tossed out of the tower and he names her, too, but at her "request" instead of any nefarious reasons related to ownership and power, and that is just. omg. FUCKING adorable. ;w; in canon their relationship doesn't work out but idrc. it's all latent stuff. not even sure this naming parallel was intentional, but it is really fun anyway! half the time i am wondering if the devs are being literary and Deep or if i'm just reading way 2 much into pretentious bullshit that got accidentally and not purposefully entangled at all lol

**ok snuffed that shit out lmao**

Back to my JAM aka obsessive (gay) incest in DMCV, in list form again:

  * V-A) When V executes Vergil in Bloody Palace, they embrace and it is so fucky. There's. A hip-thrust, lmao. u telling me devs did not deliberately tack this bullshit finisher in there cuz they knew the only ppl fucking obsessive enough to play this game that long would be fujoshi lol  
  
i'm exaggerating for comedic purposes but also? fangirls are...dedicated lol (cringes at the length of this piece, again)  
  
A lot of V's design is purposely campy in a very modern way (Loki+Kylo Ren lol) and his cutscenes are also...horny. I can't remember which exactly, but there's a scene where his body is cropped to look like he's about to get Destroyed or is in the fucking process of it, lol.


  * V-B) Right, so V's poetry. William Blake wrote a lot about the superiority of love that was unrestrained by human law because he thought it was fucked up that people got married for wealth or lineage reasons or whatever, and that the women in loveless marriages were essentially legal prostitutes and their husband's property/an extension of their husband's power and identity. (So yeah, pause for a second: The brothers are extensions of their father's power, aka the wives - yuck - in this marriage metaphor.) Both men and women in these marriages inevitably sought other lovers, hence the "superiority" of this "unfaithful" love. It's love that's honest, if not legally sanctioned. _Because_ it's not legally sanctioned.  
  
So this is all very heterosexual on the surface, but V is mostly reciting these poems either to himself (pieces of Vergil, serenading his identity through homoerotic auto-incest a la Narcissus) or his family members, both deceased (his mother) and living (his brother and his son). Wild. Like yeah, it's explicitly platonic and familial. But contextually? Many of those poems are about lust and "forbidden," romantic love. The question of whether or not that love is healthy for one's identity in DMC is not clear to me at all, but the interplay is fascinating. There are two suggestions here: a) lawless aka incestuous love, in the context of DMC, is more pure and b) lawful aka "normal" - familial, patriarchal, sanctioned - love is self-violence and self-erasure, because it reduces you to an object defined solely for the perpetuation of a bloodline. Your identity is your husband's, in Blake/your father's, in DMC.  
  
The interplay is complex and fascinating and super disturbing. Because isn't incest self-violence, too? This metaphor can just as easily be flipped _entirely_ on its head to show incest is another way of destroying oneself for one's family. It is codependent isolation vs. genuine, healthy growth outside of it; it is The Tribe vs. The Other. Which, in _reality_? That is first and foremost exactly what incest is. But in poetic myth? In this myth, where incest prods us to question what is human and what is demonic? What is individual and what is familial and communal? It's both. It's all of these things, equally and at once. I, again, have trouble with whether or not it was intentional on the devs' part, lol. But for the sake of argument, since the other gay/incest shit is intentional, let's just say this is or, if it wasn't, it doesn't matter anyway because it's an organic outgrowth of those other, deliberate intentions. 



****

  * V-C) ughhhh i don't wanna TALK ABOUT THIS LOL  
  
Let me just get this over with for the sake of putting this bitch (me) to bed. Nero tells Vergil he's going to make him submit during the final boss fight. Which is a very normal thing to say to your father. (I Am Being Sarcastic.) Once again, all hands on deck! Don't care but it's there!! Lol. They exchange stabs. And swords. _Sigh_. Very platonic except where it isn't. IMO, in the context of the narrative, Nero's unknowingly borrowing the language of sexualized violence from Dante, but he's not actually into that aspect of it. Or it's inherited in a way that's not sexual 'cause IDK, demons, lol. Metatextually, though? It is absolutely incest/fujo-bait, lol.



**DmC (DON'T make me CRY)**

god i don't have the strength

**Trigun & Damn, Yaoi, You Look Almost as Good as My Mom**

I think DMC's devs deliberately designed their characters to confirm to an oldschool yaoi aesthetic 'cause it looks sleek and sexy and striking, and it's just fucking _good packaging_. It is stylish as hell. I think of Yasuhiro Nightow as DMC's surrogate grandfather. DMC is basically Trigun, but more cohesive and better executed IMO, even if its pitch is sillier on the surface. Trigun's drawn just like oldschool yaoi in terms of proportion and aesthetic, too. Like, it's super CLAMP-y looking: BIG ARM, BIG SHOULDER, ANGULAR FEMFACE, fucktons of wings n' shit lol. Trigun's non-human, twin brothers also have a disturbingly obsessive relationship, where one is always trying to merge with the other (alien mitosis shit or whatever) to get him to embrace power, accept him, and his "true self" by extension. (Hey, sounds familiar! Vergil even looks like this twin's...twin, lol.) These twins also lose a mother figure and that loss cripples the second twin's development. Their interactions, even as children, are catastrophically violent, and end in literal natural disasters with fallout that kills other people. When they do merge it's as traumatic as rape for the passively resistant, second twin. The other key difference between Trigun and DMC is Dante and Vergil _really like_ fucking each other up, and Knives and Vash in Trigun don't have what I'd call a mutual fucking relationship, lol. But at its core, the dilemma of identity, of who's who among twins, and how those twins choose to negotiate it - through sexualized, incestuous violence - is the same.

When Nightow said he was shocked there was yaoi fanart of Trigun, _I_ was shocked, lol. I really don't believe that for a minute. Just like I figure DMC's devs aren't shocked, they just might say they are to cover their asses. And even then, I think Itsuno is pretty quietly supportive of this. One of DMC's previous manga artists now works with Nitro+Chiral, which publishes really goofy, really graphic yaoi VN's with just about every bad trope you can imagine. (Dead Dove Do Not Eat, etc.) The devs wrote DMC to be explicitly heterosexual and...implicitly, not-heterosexual, by design. Its male and female characters are sexy, and they use problematic tropes pretty liberally to pingpong through the audience's mind for as long and as lingeringly as possible. The incest is just a creative decision I don't think relates to this particular male-female duality; it's going to resonate with all audience members both as compelling and disgusting because that's just the history of human culture.

Both twins and incest, not necessarily together, are concepts through which humanity explores identity and the nebulous concept of origin. Like, just what goes on in that spooky wooooomb? How much do I owe my mother for my identity, and my trauma? Eva (and Rem, in Trigun) barely register as human; they're more maternal concepts. It's no accident dead mothers are so central to these twins' strife. Their union is so horrific but so attractive to them _because_ it echoes their birth/their mother. The womb is both the beginning and the end, because it _creates_ from (next to) _nothing_. (Sorry Sparda, lol.) Where is the line between those terrifying potentialities? Is it as thin as the embryonic lining between twins? If Dante and Vergil inherit from their father a reductive definition of selfhood, is the maternal alternative better despite its unknown baggage? Despite its heavy reliance on the other twin's selfhood, by extension? The twins in DMC and Trigun wrestle with this riddle, again and again. DMC's devs just decided to mix all these taboo themes for maximum spice.

**Conclusion**

So, all this said, I actually also really enjoy platonic familial interpretations of DMC's character dynamics. I would plug a fave's fics but I don't wanna invite The Heat more than I already have, lol. That, and I don't tag gen art with ship tags or, by that same token, directly cite gen in shipper content 'cause I think that's disrespectful to people who don't want to explore that aspect. But look. It _is_ there, like. Very loudly. It's _extremely_ fucking present. Mostly I just made this long meta post because I was mad about antis who attack incest shippers as "fucked up and delusional" when this content is _in the text_. I feel like if you've got a problem with the shippers, you've really got a problem with the DMC franchise itself and just prefer to ignore this part of it. And that part is honestly fine. I want people to enjoy DMC in as many ways as possible because a) I respect everyone's right to enjoy things the way they want to, and b) The fluidity of its appeal increases DMC's lifespan.

What isn't cool is to viciously attack shippers as scapegoats for pointing out what is almost definitely _deliberate_ subtext included to appeal to as many demographics as possible. Antis just get mad when people pick up on stuff they would prefer to deny exists, then call people sick for even daring to suggest it because it shatters their illusion. The subtext in DMC doesn't even really cross a line to me because it's like, _bone_ -deep cultural obsession. It's ancient. Greek mythology and shit. Even, for fuck's sake, the Judeo-Christian religion that is DMC's _source material_. Adam is basically Eve's mother, with God her father. GOD MPREGGED ADAM WITH A FUCKING MCRIB AND HE MARRIED HIS DAUGHTER, OK. Alright, bringing it back, lol. _Paradise Lost_ , too. I mean, come on, people.

I've seen some horrific behavior on both sides, but what I've mostly seen is antis being deliberately obtuse and reactionary to content that already fucking exists in canon and isn't, like, news. Baiting people in the #spardacest tag just for the fuck of it. I want people to have fun instead of callously exposing others to _explicit_ incestuous content they didn't consent to viewing (shippers, come on) or ripping out each other's throats for stupid, fake woke points (antis, get fucking real). It's not woke because DMC is in a dead coma, okay, and it has been since its fucking inception. It's stupid and problematic as fuck already. Canonically. A part of me feels like antis should just _get_ that, and get that incest is gonna be par for the course with this series, but everyone has different experiences and needs; different reasons for engaging with media. This is a big enough sandbox that everyone can and should share with no problem. If you got a problem with the incest and can't handle accidental exposure, never mind the exposure that's like, embedded in the series itself, and is _not just fan content_ , IMO you should really just find an IP that is genuinely wholesome. Because DMC is not that IP. You can't get much closer to explicit with DMC's audience and rating, but it's very much Game of Thrones Lite(TM) in terms of fucked-up family dynamics.

I guess I'm kind of flip-flopping on this, but ultimately it just. Does not really matter, lol. Just be nice and stop being purposefully obtuse WRT the themes in this franchise is what I wanna say; so that you can witch-hunt people based on that obtuseness and crown yourself a literary/cultural hero. I've seen some stupid posts accusing people of "wiping their incest fetish all over this pure story," and like. _Really_? lmao. Come the fuck on. sry u spent the entirety of high school english class drafting twitter clapbacks on ur phone instead of paying attention and learning critical reading skills but this is just the most basic shit ever it is not even SUBTLE, IT'S JUST. SO INCREDIBLY OBVIOUS.

**Death of the Author lol**

**note: please take this section with a MASSIVE boulder of salt, i rly needed to blow noxious smoke out my ass after that staggeringly stupid googledoc business where some1 made A List of spardacest shippers and ALSO tacked on the names of ppl who associated with them...but did not ship incest themselves (???) like what's the gd point mate, it's DMC and DMC is fuckin' GREASY. just list the entire fucking fandom including ur own dumb ass if ur basing ur callout post on "Guilt By Association" since like. ur Already There, sorry. ur already implicated just by virtue of playing this dumb fucking game**

you wanna get like. rly real and talk the anti fucking language? here's how i feel about it. in the anti language, lol. which, again, disclaimer - i think is 100% bullshit, but i am going there for the sake of this moronic discourse antis insist on pushing:

not acknowledging how Extremely Fucked Up and incestuous dante and vergil's relationship is? is actually more harmful than acknowledging it. if you equate those dynamics to normal, real sibling ones and fail to point out that they are Fucked Up, you normalize their latent sexuality as an inherent part of all existing, real sibling dynamics. you are being grossly negligent by normalizing it, and therefore are contributing to real-world abuse. so yeah honestly i think that's like, bullshit LOL. because fantasy incest IMO does not correlate with RL problems. when has it ever, it's been a part of our culture since ancient greece and even BEFORE THAT IN OTHER, OLDER CULTURES. it is the hinge on which one of the highest grossing series in history has jiggled incessantly back and forth, like a big hairy ballsack. (i legitimately cannot stand game of thrones LOL, but i acknowledge it's basically bdsm/incest/torture porn + a male power fantasy and, like, who cares. cuz that's not new or shocking at all.)

excuse me but i gotta Capslock  
THE ONLY NORMAL FAMILIAL RELATIONSHIP IN THIS ENTIRE FUCKING SERIES IS NICO/NERO AND THEY'RE NOT EVEN RELATED. THAT IS WHAT REAL SIBLINGS ARE LIKE. POORLY WRITTEN ONES COME OFF AS HAVING WEIRD SEXUAL TENSION, AND D/V IS NOT EVEN POORLY WRITTEN OR ACCIDENTAL AT THIS POINT  
DANTE AND VERGIL'S REAL BROTHER RELATIONSHIP IS BUILT ON ~COMPETITION~ AND SEXUAL STABBING LOL, THEY FLIRT, THEY FIGHT, THEY ARE FUJOBAIT CHARS THAT REALLY TOOK OFF SO THEY GOT BETTER DEVELOPED BEYOND THEIR INITIAL SURFACE APPEAL TO DUMBHORNY FANS

there is a world of fucking difference between nico and nero's easy, snide interactions and dante and vergil's decades-long, obsessive, "twisted pleasure," ok. it's fun to project onto these characters and pretend they have like a happy family dynamic, but they. DO NOT. CATEGORICALLY. IN CANON. idgaf if that's how u want to read it with your friends, but STOP. ATTACKING PPL. FOR READING WHAT'S THERE just cuz u wanna make ur issues some1 else's responsibility. ur powertripping in fandom cuz u don't have the same kind of control IRL and? u never will. but NONE OF US WILL, OKAY. and that is FINE. like, get a fucking grip and Come to Terms with that in a healthy and respectful way (lol how's that for a fucking finisher)

**btw don't republish/post this elsewhere (AO3 share button A-OK!) because i will almost definitely commit career suicide by turning it into a Legitimate Fucking Article (ugh) under yet another fake name lol. which i will not attach to this work until i publish it and revel in the inevitable horrifying backlash my publishing victim of choice will receive lmao (i'm fully kidding but damn who knows)**


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